


Empty as a Pocket

by vamm_goda



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, I feel bad for Stormtroopers, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Prompt Fill, Vague Timeframe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamm_goda/pseuds/vamm_goda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han/Luke; something to do with food, I'm not picky ;)<br/>Han tries to get Luke out and experiencing life, but things have a way of going wrong when they're involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty as a Pocket

Luke had never been to a place like this.  
  
Truth be told, he’d never been to any place. Never off the farm, never much past the canyons with his friends. When he’d made it to Mos Eisley he’d been so overwhelmed he’d felt as though he was suffocating, drowning, though that was impossible of course. Water was too precious to leave out for people to die in. Mostly they just gave up and shriveled in the suns.  
  
Han was blasé. Han was always blasé, but this time Luke could see it was sincerity and not bluster. And there was a difference. Leia said there wasn’t, but he thought that maybe she saw Han differently than he did.  
  
“You’re gonna like this place, Kid. I used to come here all the time when I was runnin’ this route, best bantha steaks you’ve ever tasted.”  
  
He didn’t have the heart to tell Han they had to be the best. He’d never had bantha before — they’d never had the money to afford them, and Jabba had very, very strict protocol on poaching. Mainly it had consisted of ‘I can do it, anyone else tries and I’ll have them hunted to the edge of the Dune Sea’.  
  
“I’m sure I will,” he agreed, tried to keep his eyes small because Han had scolded him often enough that if he kept up that wide eyed farmboy shit much longer he’d likely be shot for his credits. He didn’t need anyone to remind him that he’s not good enough with a lightsaber yet for it to make much of a difference in a blaster fight. Han was still quietly dismissive of it, which was enough for him to keep it at his side but unobtrusively. “Don’t call me kid,” he added absently.  
  
Han was quick to press his order in, but Luke lingered a little, eyes roving the menu and just trying to fathom how _so much_ was available _so quickly_. He’d nearly had a breakdown the first time Han tried this, overwhelmed with choices so that his hands were shaking with indecision. He’d begun to get past that, but he could still feel the way his eyes widened with each option, with each possibility.  
  
“After this I was thinking I would hit the sabacc tables, see if I can rustle up a little pocket money that isn’t funded from Leia and her crew, give me the chance to do things without needin’ expense reports for everything, she’s worse than Jabba for trackin’ every single little thing you drop credits on.”  
  
Those credits came from a planet that didn’t exist anymore. Luke didn’t say it though, just selected what Han had as a safe bet and let the menu power down. “Won’t you have to drop some of her credits on the table to begin with?”  
  
“You talk like I won’t make it back with interest. Have a little more faith, Kid.”  
  
“Isn’t that what I’m always telling you?” But he smiled back, just a quick touch.  
  
There are a million things they need to do here, Leia’s got contacts and plans and Han had insisted they could take one evening off, grab some food that cost more than it should and just try and pretend their lives hadn’t become like something out of Luke’s stories, which was exactly why the Stormtroopers showing up in the doorway was more of an annoyance than a surprise.  
  
Luke tried to pretend he sensed them, but he only really got that stirring about three seconds before they came in the door. Unless they were with Vader, it was harder, because the ‘troopers didn’t stir the Dark Side enough to be an alert. More than anything they were just doing a job.  
  
Han had never ceased to astonish him with the sheer speed he was capable of, even when shocked out of complacency, blaster clearing the edge of the table in a blur of motion. If they hadn’t been noticed before they were now, but the loss of anonymity was worth the benefit of a surprise attack, it gave Luke those precious seconds to ground himself, to allow the Force to touch him and flow through him. He longed for the day when it came natural as breathing.  
  
“Over there!” shouted as though the blatantly armed, blatantly fleeing figures were hard to miss and Han snapped off three shots, rapid enough to almost be one. They couldn’t risk more than that, civilians were civilians regardless, and Leia was fond of reminding him that there _had to be_ something that held them separate from the Empire in that.  
  
There were cries of shock, increasing in volume as the situation dawned on the other diners, and Luke darted a quick feint to block a clumsily fired shot that endangered one of the other diners. It was more luck than skill that deflected it back to the Stormtrooper who’d fired it, but Luke would take what he could get. Luck could become skill with practice. That put two down — only one of Han’s shots had connected — and another maybe six behind them, but congested by the doorway. Maybe someday they would learn the disadvantage of bottlenecking themselves, but Luke privately hoped not.  
  
“DOWN,” he snapped, willing authority he didn’t feel into his voice and it must have worked. Patrons and staff all connected with the floor nearly instantaneously, gave Han enough of a clean shot to hit another ‘trooper in the vulnerable netting between shoulder and chest as he raised an arm to take a shot.  
  
Luke was young, was conscious of the floor in a way that experience would cut down eventually, and his battle was nearly all offensive, trying to keep clear footing to block out the shots that came racing towards them as Han laid down a steady stream of cover fire. The troopers had numbers, they were less aiming than spraying but Han was all pinpoint accuracy, proof enough that skill could trump advantageous numbers if those numbers were sloppy. Another two went down; the third sprawled backwards as he went, and Luke took the perfect opportunity to make that dramatically flapping arm take out one of his compatriots as he went down.  
  
“Thank Providence for small favors, eh Kid?” Han shouted, eyes alight with adrenaline and excitement, not a trace of fear or nervousness.  
  
“Thank the Force!” he shot back, and he knew he was grinning because he could feel it in his face. There was no fear, not with the Force as ever present, not with Han quipping as though they had no fears in the world at all.  
  
“Maybe time to take it on the road, though?” he asked, and Han’s eyes lit up with understanding. Han, of course, decided that was the perfectly logical to shoot out a floor grate.  
  
Luke eyed it a little uncertainly. “I hope you remember what happened last time we tried that?”  
  
“That was Her Highness, not me!” he insisted, and Luke made a face because even here, with Leia lightyears away Han couldn’t drop the façade and he was maybe pleased that he hadn’t.  
  
Han’s eyes were huge, were bright and shining and the whole place was filling with smoke, so Luke just rolled his eyes, deactivated his lightsaber while Han laid down cover fire low on his knees to slow the Stormtroopers down, and he let himself jump.


End file.
